Space TV

There was a tension around the large, executive table. All of us round it were waiting on item 5 on the meeting agenda. We skittered over the other stuff as quickly as we could without giving the game away. It was item 5 where we wanted to take our time. Item 5: Budget Cuts.
Item 5. Our attention, if not all our eyes, rested on the end, or head, of the table.
"Now we come to item 5." Our manager spoke calmly, trying not to startle us. "Times are hard for the company. There is no doubt we will need to continue to keep costs from rising again this year. There is no point in delaying any further in telling you I have also been asked by the curators to make proposals to cut the budget of the department further."
All breath became a prisoner to us.
"If any of you have any thoughts, feel free to voice them now."
Some of us chose to look at our notes, one of us decided to polish a blemish of the reflective panelling of the table with their sleeve. I spoke.
"Could" a clearing throat cough came next, "I mean, couldn't we... cut our BBC3?"
"What?"
"Well, if we cut our BBC3 then we would save 10% just like that. It is a viable business tactic. All the companies making cutbacks are doing it."

Apparently it is only the BBC who can use it as a viable business tactic. Not everyone has a BBC3 hidden away. Who knew?

I can't help but feel slightly responsible for BBC3 going. I did write one or two slightly less than glowing reviews of it's in-house programming in this very blog over the years.

Because I am in a guilty mood - I am here to try and make up for my part in the shutting down of BBC3 by offering up what could go in it's place.

I watched Space Live last week on Channel 4. It was truly awesome. It confirmed there is nothing I won't watch if it is in space. I watched a man crank a jar of liquids to mix them. For 3 minutes. Just because he was doing it in space. I didn't want to blink in case I missed any of the ants' reactions when they were released into a sealed tub and experienced weightlessness. And ants, generally, are used to weighing next to nothing. I even watched when one of the spacemen took the rubbish out. Although it would have been better if he threw it hurtling towards the Sun, but still - it was still somehow cool.

Despite it being anchored by Dermot O'Leary, a man who is both Ant AND Dec should Ant and Dec ever merge fleshily into one another like a real life Station from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, Space Live was hugely watchable.

This is the sort of programming which should be shown on the grave of BBC3. Forget all that Sun, Sea and Suspicious Parents and Snog, Marry Avoid - Space and astronauts is what people aged 16-32 should be watching.

We should certainly, if any excuse is really necessary, stop watching Gogglebox, ironically also a Channel 4 production, where viewers watching TV are filmed to be watched on TV. One infinity loop episode was focussed on Space Live, incidentally, and proved as stark a contrast as one can imagine. As they watched some of the most amazing footage of our planet being beamed and streamed instantaneously to their "gogglebox" by amazing human beings the viewers (us, not the viewers on the scree- oh forget it) were treated - instead of simply more footage of soul nourishing space views - to a woman gazing at us through the screen with the expression of just realising the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star is the same as the tune to singing the Alphabet, asking:

"So Russia, China, Britain... they're all on that planet?" Yes you idiot - it's Earth! Where you're house is! If she sees the Statue of Liberty we are done for.

The scientists and pilots on the International Space Station (ISS) are aspirational figures. Highly intelligent, brave and motivated as well as being genuinely enthusiastic and articulate in their work. These are the types of core elements we should all aspire towards.

It helps, obviously, that you are doing your work in space. What must it be like to be orbiting in space knowing any scientist, any philosopher any king, queen or emperor and school child that has ever been would want to swop places with you, and you are just doing the weekly vacuuming because it is your turn on the ROTA?

They are lab technicians as submariners, working in a space submarine straight from the pages of a Jules Verne novel. That is pretty cool by my definition.

The programming on Channel 4 included views from the ISS of Earth. It was humbling. It is easy to see why it is conscious altering.

The astronauts talked of beautiful lightening storm displays across thousands of miles ("Like fireworks, but below you") seeing the thin layer of atmosphere keeping us alive, the utter lack of border lines on the land. They mentioned Heaven. Seeing the planet in this way should surely change the wars and hurt 250 miles below and at a much slower pace (the ISS witnesses 16 sun rises and sun sets per 24 hours) if the warpigs were able to take it all in from the viewing bubble of the ISS. But there is not enough room for them all up there.

More than this, though, it gave me an idea for the gap in the transmissions from pulling the plug of a TV channel which broadcast Coming Of Age (why did I never review that on this blog? Because I watched 14 minutes of it and I swear it reduced my lifespan by 8 months, that's why). Instead of BBC3, simply film the Earth as it slides by out the ISS window: no time lapse, no hurry - there is no need, it is going by at 17,100 miles an hour. The Red Button could offer a selection of music. I would choose Debussy to watch the world go by.

My God, it would be glorious.





YOU CALLED?
Er... God?
YES - YOU MENTIONED MY NAME?
Ah right... I did...
YOU WERE JUST EXCLAIMING WEREN'T YOU? FOR EFFECT.
Yes.
THAT'S WHY I MADE BLASPHEMY A THING - IT USED TO BE I COULD BE SURE PEOPLE WERE SAYING MY NAME BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY WANTED ME FOR SOMETHING IN A PRAYER. THESE DAYS IT'S ALL "JESUS" THIS AND "MY GOD" THAT, "BY THE VIRGIN MOTHER MARY'S SWEET COCK" THE OTHER...
Sorry about this. But to make it a bit better, since you're here now, can I ask you something?
SHOOT.
What was the deal with dinosaurs? I mean that was weird, no?
THE WHOLE DINOSAUR THING WAS, WHAT, 232 MILLION YEARS AGO. I WAS YOUNGER THEN. WHEN YOU'RE YOUNG EVERYONE IS INTO DINOSUARS.
So it was just a phase?
YEAH. I GREW OUT OF IT AND CAME UP WITH A DIFFERENT DIRECTION FOR EVOLUTION TO TAKE.
Which brings me onto my next question - why biology? Why create life with death?
RANDOMNESS. MATHEMATICS. I EMBODDIED EVERY LIVING THING WITH DEATH IN ORDER THAT CHANCE MAY TAKE EFFECT. LIVING THINGS ACT DIFFERENTLY WHEN THEY CAN DIE. IT MAKES LIFE INTERESTING. IT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIANT IN CREATION.
But don't you know everything already?
DO YOU THINK IF I KNEW ALL THAT WAS, ALL THAT IS AND ALL THAT SHALL BE, I WOULDN'T SIMPLY CEASE TO BE WITHIN THE NANO SECOND OF MY EXISTENCE? WHAT IS THE POINT OF KNOWING EVERYTHING. SURE I KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW AND WHAT HAS ALWAYS HAPPENED, BUT THE FUTURE NO ONE CAN PREDICT. YOU THINK EVERYTHING IS PREDETERMINED, BUT IT IS NOT. ALTHOUGH I DO HAVE A PLAN.
So... you probably get this all the time... but... what's the
REASON FOR ALL THIS? THE MEANING OF LIFE?
Yes. Why create life and then maroon it on a planet? A cruel terrarium in the universe.
WELL, SINCE IT'S YOU GREVILLE, AND YOU OWE ME ONE - SMILEY WINKY FACE - THE MEANING OF LIFE IS THE FOLLOWING:
AS WELL AS DEATH AND RISK, IN MANKIND I EMBUED AMBITION AND DESIRE AND SENSE OF PURPOSE TO ADAPT AND PROGRESS.
THE PLANET YOU STAY ON HAS MANY HARDSHIPS AND YOU STRIVE TO OVERCOME AND CONQUER THEM. MANKIND CONQUERED THE LANDS, THE SEAS AND THE VERY SKIES ABOVE. SURE THERE ARE THOSE WHO LET THEIR AMBITION AND DESIRE DICTATE AND HORRIBLE WARS AND SADNESS OCCURED. BUT MANKIND KEPT PROGRESSING AND ADAPTING AND NOW YOU ARE AT THE FINAL, HARDEST OBSTACLE I SET: SPACE.
So Earth was designed as a testing ground - a krypton factor to accomplish - with the sole outcome to get to space?
YES. AND NOW MANKIND IS CLOSE TO THE END. THE MOON, MARS AND THEN THE COSMOS. SOON YOU WILL WANT TO TRAVEL THROUGH THE VAST COLD AND FIND ME, GOD, WITH YOUR SPACE CRAFT. YOU, OF ALL LIFE, WILL HAVE ACHIEVED THE FINALITY OF MY EXPERIMENT. AND I WILL GREET YOU AND HAVE YOUR SPACE TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY.
So, all this, all this, is for you to have space travel invented for you?
YES
What does God need with a starship?
What are you doing?
I'm asking a question, Bones.

Er... I may have digressed a little there. I think I got away with it. No one will have noticed. Anyway, the point is BBC3 should be replaced with 10 hours a day of footage of the Earth. The BBC should call it the Space Station and should not go with their instincts to let the One Show presenters anywhere within 360,000 light years near it.